At last the valley was reached, and, greatly relieved, the two went into camp before prosecuting their search further.
The hermit had admitted to Buffalo Bill that he had a comrade dwelling with him in his retreat, wherever the retreat was.
Would it be that they held a secret there they did not wish known, and so would resist the intrusion of others? It might be, and that a death-struggle would follow the discovery of their retreat.
Still, Buffalo Bill was not one to dread whatever might turn up, and he had seen Doctor Dick tried and proven true as steel and brave as a lion.
And so the search continued, the scout unerringly clinging to the trail until, just as the two felt that the retreat of those mysterious dwellers in the Grand Cañon was almost before them, they came upon a sight that caused them to draw rein and sit upon their horses appalled at the scene presented to their view.
What they saw was the fallen cliff, and there, just peering out from among the piles of rocks, was the shattered end of a stout cabin. They had found the secret retreat, but they stood there feeling that those who had dwelt in that ruined cabin were beyond all human eye, buried beneath a monument of rocks an army could not remove in weeks.
"And this is the end?" said Buffalo Bill, the first to speak, breaking a silence that was appalling.
"Yes, his end, for he undoubtedly lies buried there beneath that mass of rocks. If it is my foe, Wallace Weston, who has met such a fate, so let it be."
The two did not tarry long in the cañon, for a dread of the weird spot seemed to have come over them both.
Doctor Dick roamed about, picking up bits of rock and examining it closely, while he muttered: